


rather the fallen angel

by sqidervbck



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Detective Comics (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Gen, Human Experimentation, Hurt Tim Drake, Hurt/Comfort, Tim Drake Angst, Tim Drake Needs a Hug, Tim Drake-centric, Torture, Wingfic, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:14:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26477035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sqidervbck/pseuds/sqidervbck
Summary: “You can call me the Surgeon.”“What, do you perform surgeries on your victims?” Tim asked, because he was dumb like that sometimes.The Surgeon smiled, and Red grimaced. He shouldn’t have asked.“I’ve got a special plan for you, birdy.”
Relationships: Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Damian Wayne
Comments: 13
Kudos: 323





	rather the fallen angel

**Author's Note:**

> i randomly thought this up and was like welp i might as well put it up here. enjoy!
> 
> if you couldn't tell, the title is from the frankenstein quote "i ought to be thy adam, but i am rather the fallen angel" because why not.

It was dark when Tim blinked his eyes open blearily, lids heavy with the weight of a few hours of much needed sleep. His room was cloaked in a thick layer of midnight shadows, besides the dull reflection of the pale moon against his window pane. 

He hadn’t noticed until a few moments later, that there was an underlying atmosphere of something being  _ off _ . Usually it meant the door was open, or one of the bats had come into his room during the night but—

There was breathing beside his ear and Tim jerked in response to the pressure of someone lying behind him. A warm chest pressed into his back; wide and compact. He was about to jump out of the bed when he realised who it must have been.

“Dick?” Tim whispered into the darkness.

He was waiting for his elder brother’s voice to respond with  _ ‘hey, Timmy’ _ or  _ ‘go back to sleep’ _ when a cold, large hand suddenly clamped over his mouth.

Tim’s body went taunt as rough fingers dug into his cheek and a mouth moved close to the shell of his ear.  _ Who the fuck was behind him? _

“Not quite, pretty bird.”

The voice was unfamiliar, which made him whimper against the callused hand. He was struggling to breathe and he wanted to  _ scream _ . Where was Dick? Where was Bruce? How the  _ fuck _ did this man get into the manor?

“Not so tough and crime-fighting now, huh?”

The man’s voice made Tim internally gag. It was low in the most disturbing way possible and had an awful Gotham tang to it which, while attractive with Jason, made Tim want to throw up his guts. 

He tried screaming against the hand, but stopped when a cold pressure was placed near his temple. Tim swallowed thickly, suddenly still against the metal of the gun.

“Uh uh uh, pretty bird,” the man leered. Tim tasted ash in the back of his mouth and wanted to spit it out. “You’re gonna come with me nice and quiet, yeah?”

“Mmph,” Tim whimpered against the man’s cold hand. He wriggled, trying to get as far away from the body pressed against his back. 

“Night night.”

The barrel of the gun knocked him out quick.

━━━━━━━━

When Tim gained consciousness again everything was loud.

There was an incessant buzzing right in his ear, and everything felt white and hot and like he was being trapped in a box without enough oxygen. His ears wanted to pop, giving him a splitting headache. He was probably drugged.

He wriggled, getting an awareness of his state. His wrists, ankles, hips and stomach were all strapped down to a metal table and there was a brace holding his head still. All in all, this was going to be difficult to get out of.

“Ah, you’re awake!” came the same voice that he’d heard the other night.

It made his hackles rise and muscles tensed. Tim tried to look around to find the man, but his head couldn’t move in the brace.

“Oh, you wouldn’t want to move your head,” said the man, with slight humour. “That’s an electrified brace there, so if you move it goes zap. Let me tell you, it hurts.  _ Especially _ on your neck.”

Tim was really  _ done _ with this shit. He’d kind of assumed Gotham had thrown all her baddies at them already, but then again it had been abnormally quiet recently. Quiet meant something new was gonna come up.

Just his luck that this new baddie wants  _ him _ .

“You might be a bit confused, but don’t worry your little head. I’ve got something fun in store for you. Trust me,  _ pretty bird _ , you’ll like it.”

When the man’s head came into Tim’s field of vision, the young vigilante was slightly taken aback by the handsome face. He didn’t know why, but he always imagined his captors as slimy, ugly, old guys.

This man looked only 30, with a well trimmed beard and dark, gelled back hair. His eyes were a misty grey and his skin a cool olive tone. Despite his general attractiveness, Tim still felt disgusted by the fact that he’d been  _ lying next to him _ when he woke up last night.

“You can call me the Surgeon.”

Tim hated that name  _ so much _ and it wasn’t even for any specific reason.

“What, do you perform surgeries on your victims?” Tim asked, because he was dumb like that sometimes.

The Surgeon smiled, and Red grimaced.  _ He shouldn’t have asked _ .

“I’ve got a special plan for you, birdy.”

Suddenly there were six goons on him, manhandling him out of the braces and onto his stomach. Tim jerked, trying to buck out of their grips, but his head felt foggy from whatever they had drugged him with while he was unconscious. He also didn’t want to electrocute himself on the head brace.

He groaned when he was roughly restrapped to the table, now on his stomach. His head was secured from the brace, face aimed down to the concrete floor. This was  _ so _ inconvenient.

“This is going to hurt… a lot,” said the Surgeon.

_ Yeah, I’ve heard that before,  _ Tim thought sourly. 

Torture wasn’t anything exactly new to him. What  _ was _ new, was being kidnapped from his bed as ‘Tim Drake’ but being tortured as if he was Red Robin.

“I’d give you some morphine for the pain but, well… it’s all part of the fun, right?”

“Fuck you,” Tim snarled back, shivering when the back of his shirt was cut open.

He had half forgotten that he was in his pajamas and not his Red Robin suit. It made him feel uncomfortably vulnerable and underprepared. It wasn’t as if his pajamas had trackers in them or anything.

The first spark of pain came completely unexpectedly.

There was something tearing through his flesh — some sort of bladed machine — and cutting a line down his spine. Tim tried not to scream, biting down on his tongue until metallic blood filled his mouth.

His back was on fire and  _ owfuck _ that hurt. That hurt,  _ that hurt _ .

“No screaming?” the Surgeon hummed over the humming of the machine. “Well, aren’t you a tough cookie.”

And then there were  _ tubes in his spine _ , and forceps pulling open the skin on his back. Tim cried out, unable to stop himself as metal impaled his spine. His head jerked to the side involuntarily, causing electricity to spark through his neck.

_ What the fuck, what the fuck, whatthefuck— OW! _

“AHH—  _ fuck, shitfuck _ ,” Tim exclaimed, his whole body going tense in response to the extreme pain. “What the  _ fuck _ .”

“I did say it was going to hurt, pretty bird. But don’t worry, it will all be worth it in the end.”

And Tim wanted to  _ die _ .

Everything hurt like a  _ motherfucker _ , and his eyes were going white in panic. His body started to shake, unable to handle the sensation of his  _ bones being rearranged. _

When he blinked through the hazy pain, Tim could see the splatters of blood which had fallen to the floor. There was a puddle around one of the legs of the table and  _ oh god, Tim was going to throw up _ .

“Bring them over, will you?” Tim heard through the buzzing in his ears.

_ Bring what over? _ he wanted to ask, but he was worried he would throw up if he tried to speak.

And then more pain.

There was something heavy on his back, weighing down his body. Something soft if Tim focused hard enough. His shoulder blades ached as the bones were pulled up.

_ Where the fuck was Batman? _

His vision blurred, and bile rose in his throat. It hurt so fucking much, and all he could think was;  _ I’m going to die _ .

The last thing he saw was a puddle of spreading blood, before he fell unconscious. 

━━━━━━━━

_ Owfuck, that hurts _ , was the first thing Tim thought as his eyes blinked.

Despite the years of training which told him to explicitly  _ not act like a civilian when kidnapped _ , Tim opened his eyes to look around himself. The room was bright, with a single medical light standing next to where he lay on a metal table. 

The same metal table he’d been… experimented on?

He felt heavy, and his whole body hurt. More specifically, his back hurt. Tim recalled the feeling of his ribcage being opened and his shoulder blades moving to accommodate the new… the new  _ what? _

It took a few moments for Tim to realise why he felt so heavy.

“What the—”

Tim reached behind himself blindingly, searching for whatever the fuck the Surgeon had  _ attached to his back _ . He flinched when he felt something soft between his fingers. Soft and… were those  _ feathers _ ?

There was a mirror attached to the wall and it only took one glance at it before Tim was stumbling over to it, unused to the new weight on his back. He fumbled, grasping onto the mirror’s frame in order to keep himself from falling.

And when he looked in the mirror there were—

“Oh God,” Tim mumbled as bile rose in his throat.

He vomited to the side, stomach acid burning the back of his mouth and making his eyes water. His mind spun uncontrollably because what the ever-loving  _ fuck _ ?

Tim looked back to the mirror, eyes wide as he observed his figure. There was bile down his chin and tear lines streaked across his cheeks. He was shirtless and the amount of blood across his torso and skin was  _ appalling _ , but that wasn’t the biggest concern.

No, the biggest concern was the pair of  _ wings _ attached to his back.

He turned to the side, gagging at the sight of the two wings which stretched from his back, arched high above his shoulders and then dangled down by his ankles. 

The top of the wings were a bright, Robin red which then bled down to black in a mismatched pattern. The largest wings at the bottom, which tickled his ankles, were black with dots of white. They were stunning, sure, but  _ what the fuck _ .

He didn’t know if the red colour was their actual colour, or if that was just the blood. He could tell that all the feathers were caked with the thick liquid, making them stick down oddly. The only clean ones were down by his feet.

When Tim tried to move them, see if maybe they were like another limb, they didn’t move.  _ Huh _ , Tim thought,  _ weird _ . He tried to make them move again, but nothing.

So maybe they didn’t move on his command. Which was… really weird. Or maybe he just had to train them, like learning to walk.

They were sore to a point that he wanted to cry out with every step he took. And the new weight distribution was going to take a  _ long _ time to get used to.

There was a sudden noise from the door, and Tim turned suddenly to see it open. He hadn’t noticed the wings raise defensively behind him, almost as if reading his mind.

_ So they did move _ .

The door widened to reveal the Surgeon standing there, smiling grossly.

“What the fuck did you do to me?” Tim hissed, thankful that he didn’t stutter with the pain and panic filling his body.

“It’s an improvement, don’t you think, pretty bird?”

That nickname had a whole new meaning now. Tim growled low in his throat.

The Surgeon raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Oh, don’t be so inhumane, Timothy. You’ll thank me, eventually. After all, it does bring the whole  _ Red Robin _ to life, yes?”

And that made Tim pause because  _ fuck _ .

He knew. 

That meant the Surgeon was a bit more than just some run-of-the-mill villain (as if the literal  _ wings _ didn’t tell him as such).

Tim was about to attack or— or do  _ something _ , when the Surgeon suddenly dropped to the floor. He looked down, blinking at the paralytic batarang in the Surgeon’s shoulder.

_ Thank fuck _ .

He glanced up again, sighing in relief at the sight of Batman. The vigilante stood in the doorway, a dark silhouette against the brightly lit hallway. There was a moment of silence.

“B,” said Tim.

His knees suddenly gave out, and Bruce rushed forward to catch him before he collided with the floor. His body felt weak, and he was really starting to feel the blood loss hit right about then. A hand hesitated over his back, and Tim could tell that Bruce was taking in the new… limbs.

“Tim?” Bruce asked quietly, nervously.

“Bruce,” Tim whimpered helplessly, not even caring about how fucking pathetic he probably looked.

He could hear as more footsteps came into the room, and blinked blearily at Nightwing, Hood and Robin’s blurry figures. N’s face fell in horror.

“What… B?” the eldest brother asked.

Batman looked back for a moment, before picking Tim up in his arms. Tim slumped against his large chest, glad to finally fucking  _ rest _ .

“Prep the batmobile,” B ordered, before glancing down at the Surgeon who still lay in the doorway. “And get him out of my sight.”


End file.
